Django automatically performing the collectstatic command - django

Question

In my project, I have a main static folder and a sub folder named static. When I make changes in my sub folder named static (which I specified in COLLECTSTATIC_DIRS within the settings file), I save the file and run the collectstatic command.
This successfully saves the changes, however is really inefficient as I am constantly changing css and Javascript files inside my project, which I store as static files.
I browsed the web, and came across a solution named whitenoise, which is a pip package. But this package only works for a short period of time, and after a few times of closing and opening my project folder, it completely stopped working.
Does anybody have another solution to deal with this problem? Thank you.

Answer 1

You can use python-watchdog and write your own Django command:
import time
from django.conf import settings
from django.core.management import call_command
from django.core.management.base import BaseCommand
from watchdog.events import FileSystemEventHandler
from watchdog.observers import Observer
class Command(BaseCommand):
help = "Automatically calls collectstatic when the staticfiles get modified."
def handle(self, *args, **options):
event_handler = CollectstaticEventHandler()
observer = Observer()
for path in settings.STATICFILES_DIRS:
observer.schedule(event_handler, path, recursive=True)
observer.start()
try:
while True:
time.sleep(1)
finally:
observer.stop()
observer.join()
class CollectstaticEventHandler(FileSystemEventHandler):
def on_moved(self, event):
super().on_moved(event)
self._collectstatic()
def on_created(self, event):
super().on_created(event)
self._collectstatic()
def on_deleted(self, event):
super().on_deleted(event)
self._collectstatic()
def on_modified(self, event):
super().on_modified(event)
self._collectstatic()
def _collectstatic(self):
call_command("collectstatic", interactive=False)

Answer 2

You can use 3rd party solution which doesn't belong to Django to monitor your files and run commands on the files changes.
Take a look at fswatch utility Bash Script - fswatch trigger bash function
How to manage static files "Django-way"
Please check details on https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.0/howto/static-files/ what is a Django-way to do it correct :)

Answer 3

First of all set DEBUG = True while working on development.
Then add these lines to your project's urls.py:
from django.conf import settings
from django.views.decorators.cache import cache_control
from django.contrib.staticfiles.views import serve
from django.conf.urls.static import static
if settings.DEBUG:
urlpatterns += static(settings.STATIC_URL,
view=cache_control(no_cache=True, must_revalidate=True)(serve))

Answer 4

Here's an example using Python watchfiles and a Django management command.
# Lives in /my_app/manangement/commands/watch_files.py
import time
from django.conf import settings
from django.core.management import call_command
from django.core.management.base import BaseCommand
from watchfiles import watch
class Command(BaseCommand):
help = "Automatically calls collectstatic when the staticfiles get modified."
def handle(self, *args, **options):
print('WATCH_STATIC: Static file watchdog started.')
#for changes in watch([str(x) for x in settings.STATICFILES_DIRS]):
for changes in watch(*settings.STATICFILES_DIRS):
print(f'WATCH_STATIC: {changes}', end='')
call_command("collectstatic", interactive=False)
You can then run the Django management command in the background in whatever script you use to start Django.
python manage.py watch_static &
python manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:8000